They surveyed
some and settled them; but the war of 1755 came on and broke up the
settlements. After it was over they petitioned for a renewal. Four other
large companies then formed themselves, called the Mississippi, the
Illinois, the Wabash, and the Indiana companies, each praying for
immense quantities of land, some amounting to two hundred miles square,
so that they proposed to cover the whole country north between the
Ohio and Mississippi, and a great portion of what is south. All these
petitions were depending, without any answer whatever from the crown,
when the revolution war broke out. The petitioners had associated to
themselves some of the nobility of England, and most of the characters
in America of great influence. When Congress assumed the government,
they took some of their body in as partners, to obtain their influence;
and I remember to have heard at the time, that one of them took Mr.
Girard as a partner, expecting by that to obtain the influence of the
French court; to obtain grants of those lands which they had not been
able to obtain from the British government. All these lands were within
the limits of Virginia, and that State determined peremptorily, that
they never should be granted to large companies, but left open equally
to all: and when they passed their land law (which I think was in 1778)
they confirmed only so much of the lands of the Loyal company as they
had actually surveyed, which was a very small proportion, and annulled
every other pretension.
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